Jamestown High repeats as the area's No. 1 athletic program of the year

From the moment in late summer when Ben Meadows drove more than 300 yards off the tee on his way to an eagle on a par-5 hole, you had the feeling it was going to be a year of big numbers for Jamestown High athletics.

Meadows and his teammates on the golf team would go on to post some of Jamestown's most impressive numbers. But the web of numbers Eagles athletes wove in 2010-11 was so vast that picking Jamestown for its second consecutive Daily Press high school athletic Program of the Year award was easy.

From a team standpoint there was so much to choose from. On the state level, the Eagles golfers repeated as AA champions and the boys indoor track team finished second.

The school captured six Bay Rivers District titles: in golf, boys swimming and diving, girls indoor track, boys soccer, boys tennis and girls tennis. Three Jamestown teams repeated their regular season titles by winning district tournaments — golf, boys swimming and diving, and boys soccer — while volleyball and girls soccer teams rose to the occasion in the postseason to win their district tournaments.

Not long after Meadows' eye-popping drive, the Jamestown golfers added to an already stellar list of numbers. The district title was their ninth in succession, the regional title their fifth in a row and their state title the program's third in 12 years — and a first-ever repeat.

They did it in style, too, winning by 12 strokes with a two-day total of 575 that broke the AA state record by seven shots. The fact that three of the golf team's top six will play on the Division I collegiate level this fall — Seth Nooe (William and Mary), Nick Tremps (Virginia) and Victoria Newbury (Florida Gulf Coast) — is noteworthy well.

Then there were those 49 assists by setter Monique St. Cyr in the district volleyball tournament championship match. They were key in the Eagles handing eventual state runner-up Grafton its first loss to a district team in two seasons.

Winter saw the Eagles earn three gold medals in the AA state track and field meet: Tommy Vitaletti at 300 meters, Anthony Green at 500 meters and the 800-meter relay team of Green, Graham McLaughlin, Daniel Moniak and Brad Turner. Ryan Antal won a diving state championship for Jamestown with a mark of 426.20 that made him the first AA diver ever to surpass 400 points.

As always, Jamestown athletics continued to pile onto its big numbers in the spring. The girls tennis team won its 12th regional title in 13 seasons and the boys their fifth in a row, while the boys soccer team rung up a fourth consecutive regional crown.

The individual numbers within those team numbers were terrific, too. Patrick O'Brien made the all-state boys soccer first team behind 25 goals and 13 assists. Vitaletti, a shortstop in baseball, helped the Eagles reach a first state tournament in nine years with a .506 batting average and 34 runs he scored in large part because he stole 25 bases in 27 attempts.

All of that success, including sending 17 teams around the commonwealth for AA state competition, resulted in an incalculable number of hours new athletic director Don Samuels spent organizing logistics.

"As I always say, that's the kind of kind of problem I love dealing with," he said. "It's easiest to remember the golf team starting off the fall with back-to-back state championships and setting a state record in the process.

"But the overall strength of athletics at the school showed itself in sports like softball, which won more games than ever before. I'm proud of our strength across the board, and of those teams that showed significant improvement."